JAZZ SERIES IS MORE THAN JUST TALK

Alto ace Bruce Williams is tonight’s guest, and the legendary Louis Armstrong is next week’s topic, when the Talkin’ Jazz series returns to the Count Basie’s Carlton Lounge beginning tonight.

By TOM CHESEK

April is National Jazz Appreciation Month (it’s also National Garden Month, National Poetry Month, and National Irritable Bowel Syndrome Month, but those are stories for another time) a fact made manifest here in the Basie-birthing borough by the Navesink.

Every April for the past four years, Red Banks globe-trotting jazz scholar, conductor, arranger and producer Joe Muccioli has teamed with his fellow founders of the Jazz Arts Project to host a quietly swingin’ soiree by the name of Talkin Jazz, a weekly Monday night series of intimate gatherings that serve to illuminate the human element, the sweet science and even the silly stuff behind what the Man Called Mooch has branded “America’s classical music.”

Presented inside the Carlton Lounge (that’s the cool and comfortable VIP room on the ground floor of the Count Basie Theatre), it’s a happening that’s blessedly free of tuxedo’d pretension, free of nightclub noise and free of charge. While you’re under no obligation to knock on the door and tell ’em “Joe sent me,” you can do so if you’re feeling frisky and fancy free. And, best of all, you can head on over there this very evening, if you’re feeling jazzily spontaneous.

The series continues at the Count Basie’s Carlton Lounge with visits by musician-historian Bill Crow (April 18), plus WBGO radio’s Dorthaan Kirk and Sheila Anderson (April 25).
The 2011 series sets sail tonight at 7p, with a visit by Bruce Williams, a young veteran of such formidable organizations as the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, the Count Basie Orchestra and the World Saxophone Quartet and as the Jazz Arts Project’s own education director, a man who plays a major role in the mentoring and development of students in the recently created Jazz Arts Academy. The alto saxophonist hosts a discussion on Improvisation and Education a couple of concepts that, in the hands of this music master, are not mutually exclusive.

On April 11, the spotlight settles upon the iconic figure of the legendary Louis Armstrong specifically, the last quarter-century of Satchmo’s long-playing career as a trailblazing instrumentalist, bandleader and late-blooming pop vocalist of unorthodox voice and unimpeachable taste. Guest speaker is reporter, biographer and pianist Ricky Riccardi, who reads from his book What a Wonderful World: The Magic of Louis Armstrong’s Later Years, and introduces some seldom-played audio and video recordings of the genius at work.

The evening of April 18 sees the return of a seriously skilled multi-instrumentalist, author and memoirist, in something of an Aprilly Foolish setting. A veteran of seminal sets with Stan Getz, Marian McPartland, Gerry Mulligan and more (and himself the subject of an iconic photographed image from 1950s NYC), Bill Crow is also a farcical folklorist whose specialty is “the hip silliness of the jazz world.” The author of Jazz Anecdotes shares some of his favorite stories, jokes, one-liners and “quick witted retorts,” and maybe even lays down a boulevardin’ bassline or two.

The series wraps April 25 on an official note, with The State of Jazz address delivered here by a pair of notable women with major ties to Newark-based WBGO Jazz 88.3FM. Station co-founder Dorthaan Kirk (the widow, by the by, of the amazing Rahsaan Roland Kirk) is joined by on-air personality, author and producer Sheila Anderson for a discussion of “the state of jazz today and what we can do to keep it alive and strong.”

Seating for these free Talkin Jazz presentations is limited to about 40 persons (and strictly first-come, first served), with prospective patrons urged to reserve in advance by calling (732) 746-2244. As always, the Mooch Merch Table will be stocked with books, CDs, and other materials of interest to jazz lovers at each Monday event.

Jazz Appreciation Month also continues Wednesdays through Sundays at Natalia Belayas Butterfly Fine Arts Gallery at 116 Broad Street, where the Jazz Arts Project’s Art of Jazz exhibit plays on, during regular gallery hours.